Just checking to see if anybody here raises heirloom breed pigs. I am especially interested in sourcing Large Blacks, Herefords or Gloucestershire Old Spots.
I love the idea of preserving heirloom breeds, as well as experimenting with different tastes and meat qualities.
You might go checking on places like Homesteading Today or search for Farm Forum groups to locate such pigs. No experience with those breeds except at Heritage Sites like Willamsburg, VA or Sturbridge Village, MA. One local person sells Hereford pigs on Craigslist and they ARE CUTE!
There are always good and bad features with Heritage breeds, which is WHY they are not widely popular. On small places folks may not mind dealing with those features or even consider them a bonus, but the Commercial market does not. Have you checked with the American Livestock Conservancy? Here is their site, maybe they have some pig breeders listed that you could call.
Thank you goodhors!!!
You have given me a ton of great info. I have been raising Hamps, and the last bunch had some Duroc in them, but since I don’t have to do this on a large scale, and my overhead is very low, I really want to start experimenting with older breeds. I got my husband to get in a few Ayrshire cows and Linebacks as well, and really like them. We haven’t eaten a Lineback steer yet, but the Ayrshire was delicious. I can only imagine how good pigs not bred to fatten quickly would taste! In reading about the different breeds, I was really struck on how some have been selected to not be escape artists, some for better bacon, and the GOS were developed to not damage the trees in the orchards in which they foraged
Heritage breeds are in my future too. I almost bought a few Tamworth babies a bunch of years ago but someone got the there before me and snagged every one they had --dammit.
But someday I will be back at it, I promise.
[QUOTE=rustbreeches;8057601]
I got my husband to get in a few Ayrshire cows and Linebacks as well, and really like them. [/QUOTE]
Not to derail this thread: I live in Holstein country and some people do still have the Lineback color bred into their herds, but I don’t know from what origin (shorthorn etc). There is a guy around here who has them. He calls them the “blue cows” because his stock trends towards the White Classic Witrick and Holstein patterns in roan instead of black or red. As a kid I always wanted a team of lineback oxen. (there was a team of gorgeous Ayshires around here that I lusted after). One year after I got through college I bought four or five bull calves from the blue cow guy. The first one was awesome and I really should have kept it, but the best match to him was polled and I didn’t want polled oxen. So the whole batch was raised as market steers instead.
A local orchard owner got some pigs (can’t remember if they were a Heritage breed) and fenced them in among the trees. The pigs ate anything that fell, grazed the grasses between trees, not fed grain. They grew quite well, and were to be his winter freezer meat. The next year he noticed that some kind of “flies” that get in the fruit plums, peaches, nectarines (if I am remembering correctly) were not present. He had no issues with the flies in the orchard that year. He did graze some more pigs out in the various fruit trees again. By the third year of pig keeping, no flies that third year either, he decided the difference was due to the pigs. He contacted MSU and had some folks out to discuss the seeming “benefit” of pig grazing out in the orchard. The AG folks said the process of pigs eating all downed fruit, going thru the pig digestive system, had removed the habitat for fly eggs so there were no NEW flies the following year. Got a big write-up in the local newspaper and I think the Michigan Farm Bureau News.
So another use of pigs to your benefit if you have any fruit trees. There were not many pigs, less than 10. He had LOTS of ground to graze, with no bothering the trees or roots at all. He was selling the extra pigs as grass-fed and didn’t have enough to supply the folks wanting one. Sounded quite profitable with only having to buy the piglets, fed what would have been waste fruit or mowed grass that cost nothing. He just moved the pen/fencing around as needed.
I saw some Randall Lineback cattle at Sturbridge Village being trained as oxen. Beautiful color blue-grey with the white faces and stripes on their backs. Saw some Red Devon crossed with the Randall Lineback, being used as oxen to plow fields in Old Williamsburg. Also very handsome cattle, but red with the white trim, very muscular and working nicely for the plowmen. We had a Dutch Belted steer for a 4-H project and he was very nice to deal with. Easy to handle, quite attractive and SOLD well for his lovely hide. The milk is almost pre-homogenized with tiny fat lumps in it. Extremely desireable for cheese making. The only local herd is contracted for all their milk to go to the award winning cheese folks in Ann Arbor. The Farm is classified Organic, which might make their milk even more desirable to the cheese folks. I was quite surprised to learn so many good things about this scarce breed after we got the calf. Much more refined as Dairy cattle with good production, than the double use Belted Galloways, though the belt pattern is similar.
Great story goodhors! I want a pet heritage pig desperately but DH says no. I keep trying to convince him a pig running around the farm would be great, but so far no dice. Anyways great thread topic!! Hope you get some heritage pigs and tell about them OP!!
[QUOTE=Hulk;8057992]
Great story goodhors! I want a pet heritage pig desperately but DH says no. I keep trying to convince him a pig running around the farm would be great, but so far no dice. Anyways great thread topic!! Hope you get some heritage pigs and tell about them OP!![/QUOTE]
Have you been around pigs much? They are destructive most of the time. Rooting up the grass, beating the crap out of feeders and water tanks, testing fence, etc. You don’t want one running around your farm willy nilly :lol:
I have to say I agree with Mosey. This year we have our first pig, a large black, and he will be our last.
Just to hi-jack – sheep are very compatible with horses:
They weedeat the fence posts
They browse the coarser grasses
They do not share parasites with horses
Their manure pellets fertilize evenly
They leave your pasture like a billiard table
It is best to have them go in after the horses and rotate
Nice and tidy.
I’ve got a friend who raises Herefords amongst other breeds.
He has had Gloucester Old spots in the past, though I don’t think so presently.
Also sometimes Tamworths and Durocs.
[QUOTE=Mosey_2003;8058226]
Have you been around pigs much? They are destructive most of the time. Rooting up the grass, beating the crap out of feeders and water tanks, testing fence, etc. You don’t want one running around your farm willy nilly :lol:[/QUOTE]
Yes we always had just regular pigs growing up on the farm. But I heard pasture pigs are not as bad or like that at all. I also have lots of land and pasture, and definitely would house in a warm secure location for winters. But he really is against getting a pig, so I am not going to push it. We went through the same thing when I wanted mini cattle. He just isn’t convinced.
I think I am just getting old and miss the things of my youth like cows and pigs. Totally stupid I know, but I miss them.
Sounds like several are having fun with their pigs.
We raised two every six months, slaughtered them every spring and fall.
We little kids could play with them while small.
They were raised in their pen, partially free range, let out most of the day.
Piglets are really fun to have around.
Once half grown, pigs were confined in their pen 24/7.
Then they were completely off limits, with scary stories of bigger pigs eating careless kids.
We fed them and interacted with them thru the fence, but not going in there ever any more without an adult.
Just hope “y’all” don’t get any feral hogs around there.
Those are right down scary critters.
[QUOTE=Hulk;8059311]
Yes we always had just regular pigs growing up on the farm. But I heard pasture pigs are not as bad or like that at all. I also have lots of land and pasture, and definitely would house in a warm secure location for winters. But he really is against getting a pig, so I am not going to push it. We went through the same thing when I wanted mini cattle. He just isn’t convinced.
I think I am just getting old and miss the things of my youth like cows and pigs. Totally stupid I know, but I miss them.[/QUOTE]
Maybe some of the heirloom breeds aren’t? My girl friend keeps hers outside in pasture with access to the barn and she still has to have cement water troughs and sturdy feeders because they just destroy anything else. Maybe you’d have better luck 
Pigs are like cows, hard on equipment. Both species tend to rub things HARD, always itching, so that starts breaking lightly built equipment pretty fast. Neither species has any concept of self preservation, will bash right into stuff or push other animals into things! No big deal!! Tough hides, thick skin and fat layers may be protective.
Not sure if having only 1-2 animals makes them less food aggressive, in not beating on the feeders as seen in large pig feeding lots.
Both cattle and pigs are smarter in many instances that what they are given credit for being. Our cattle were VERY smart, so I worked with them to be cooperative, be easy to handle on a daily basis. Did take time, but sure made it nicer working with them. We only had two at a time, so obviously easier with less to manage.
I have heard lots of pig stories, good and bad. I don’t want one, won’t ever own one, since my dealings with them as a kid were kind of scary. Can’t compare the regular meat breeds with the Heritage breeds for you in ease of handling, ability to keep them contained on GOOD pasture easily, so no help here. Grown pigs are LARGE, powerful, and can be VERY DETERMINED to do whatever it is they want to do. You need to plan for that in building pens, fences, containment areas. Handle the piglets young, teach them what you want them to do while small enough to manage, should make them lots easier to deal with as older pigs. They are very smart, but cooperation is TRAINED in at young ages. An old Farmer Saying around here is “You can’t lead them, you can’t drive them, but SOMETIMES you can lure them into going where you want”. Totally truth, so keep it in mind when handling pigs of any size or breed.
Right, pigs are destructive to an extent that only those that have seen the destruction can understand.
Yesterday about dark the horses alerted to something right by the house.
I went to look and right across the road some pigs were rooting by the gate, three adults is all I saw, could have been more.
Mind you, we have seen whole sections of fence uprooted by feral hogs in one night of having fun.
This is what was there this morning, after only some minutes of feral hogs rooting around, on previously hard ground by those gates:
Currently we have a mixed pen of Yorkshires, Hamps and Duroc. They are hard on stuff, but not worse than any of the just Yorks we have raised. I think some heritage breeds are much better about rooting. We’ve been raising pigs for years, I’m just looking to get into specialty breeds
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